When we got home, before we could get to the fridge to store our very extremely heavy-with-cheese sandwich, Peter was there in the dining area with an expression on his face that we really didn’t want to deal with.

Sometimes knowing sympathy is just too much.

But he was also keeping his mouth tightly shut and holding a fancy card envelope as if he was ready to hand it to us.

Without taking our earbuds out or turning off the music, I raised our eyebrows at him.

He held out the envelope and just said, audible to us through the music because of our enhanced senses, “Let me know if you need to talk about anything. I’ll make you whatever you want for dinner. Anything.” And then he nodded as we took the envelope.

The return address was from our parents.

We went and put the sandwich away.

Then we went into our bedroom, still listening to our music. “Heads will roll” by the Ya Ya Yas was the song of the moment.

Without really looking at it or letting ourselves fret, we tore the envelope open, and pulled out the card.

It had a single candle on the front of it, and the flame was in the shape of a cross.

I put our thumb inside the card and pushed it open.

Dear Sarah,

Our parents had at least accepted our transition. That had been a huge, well, blessing. Even if they had so much trouble understanding the rest. So much so we’d had to leave. Except for a couple members, our extended family was more of a problem.

Your grandmother’s health has taken an ill turn. I know how much you’ve bonded with her and care about her, and I wanted you to know well ahead of time so that you can plan a trip. We’re holding a family gathering on August 15, starting at 2pm, so that she can see and talk to everyone while it’s still possible. I hope you’ll be able to make it. We’ll pay your way.

Love,

Mom

Sarah immediately took over, fuming.

She walked over to our computer desk where our dead laptop still lay. We’d successfully removed the hard drive and stored it away months ago, but hadn’t figured out how to responsibly dispose of the remains. It was a lot less neatly stacked and had even begun to disseminate parts over the rest of the desk without us even having touched it.

Sarah put our hand down next to it and swept all of it onto the floor.

Then she unceremoniously tossed the card onto the desk, right below the script shaped stain in the wall that Aswhin had made that said, ‘Bem hihe,’ or, ‘beauty is you’ in Inmararräo. Their way of saying “thank you” for giving nem a home here.

And she kicked our chair away and backed up and sat abruptly on the bed, staring at the card.

I could feel her gathering all of her rage and anguish over everything and focusing it on that card.

I admit, I joined in. Adding all the terror I’d felt over the course of my life. I didn’t quite fully understand why she’d picked this as the focus of everything, but it didn’t matter.

We needed to do this.

The others remained silent and observed.

They knew we were dealing with something that was none of their business, but I could feel their emotional support, confused and uncertain as it was from some of them.

Phage understood the best. Pretty damn well, actually. But it remained passive for other good reasons.

We focused on that fucking image of a candle flame.

We saw the movement of the electrons in the paper and understood them.

We saw the same in the air around the paper, and in the desk.

We felt the flow of heat throughout the room, from even further, as the sunlight hit the roof and walls of the house, and the residual heat from a whole day of that was constantly, slowly seeping into the rest of the house.

And we made it easier for all of that heat to travel toward the printed candle flame.

We willed it.

And for a while, nothing happened.

Nothing happened for the rest of the song, but we kept at it. And when the song ended, we reached over and added the energy from the battery in the MP3 player to our efforts, and there was no more music from that machine ever again.

And a little whiff of smoke rose from the paper.

And then a real flame appeared.

And Sarah wrinkled our nose and gripped that flame with her focus and accelerated it until the entire card was just gone in a flare.

There wasn’t a mark left on the desk. Not even the slightest trace of soot.

“Sure, Mom. I’ll be there,” she said.